ACUITY Toolkit Environment Setup

The ACUITY Toolkit runs inside a Docker container on an x86 PC. This guide covers installing Docker on Ubuntu and setting up the ACUITY environment for Allwinner T527 / A733 NPU development.

---

1. Install Docker

Install Docker on your x86 PC. The steps below use Ubuntu as an example — for other platforms refer to the Docker documentation.

Remove Old Docker Versions

for pkg in docker.io docker-doc docker-compose docker-compose-v2 podman-docker containerd runc; do
    sudo apt-get remove $pkg
done

Configure the Docker APT Repository

# Add Docker's official GPG key
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install ca-certificates curl
sudo install -m 0755 -d /etc/apt/keyrings
sudo curl -fsSL https://download.docker.com/linux/ubuntu/gpg -o /etc/apt/keyrings/docker.asc
sudo chmod a+r /etc/apt/keyrings/docker.asc

Add the Repository to APT Sources

echo \
  "deb [arch=$(dpkg --print-architecture) signed-by=/etc/apt/keyrings/docker.asc] https://download.docker.com/linux/ubuntu \
  $(. /etc/os-release && echo "${UBUNTU_CODENAME:-$VERSION_CODENAME}") stable" | \
  sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/docker.list > /dev/null
sudo apt-get update

Install Docker

sudo apt-get install docker-ce docker-ce-cli containerd.io docker-buildx-plugin docker-compose-plugin

---

2. Install ACUITY

Note: Due to SDK version compatibility, different Docker images are required depending on the target NPU (A733 or T527 — I used T527-OrangePi-4A). Download the Docker image from my Google Drive.

Unzip the Download Package

unzip docker_images_v1.8.x.zip

Load the Docker Image

cd docker_images_v1.8.x
unzip ubuntu-npu_v1.8.11.tar.zip
sudo docker load -i ubuntu-npu_v1.8.11.tar

After loading, verify the image is available:

docker images
# Expected: ubuntu-npu:v1.8.11

Create a Docker Container

mkdir docker_data && cd docker_data
sudo docker run --ipc=host -itd -v ${PWD}:/workspace --name allwinner_v1.8.11 ubuntu-npu:v1.8.11 /bin/bash

Verify the container is running:

docker ps -a
# Expected: allwinner_v1.8.11

Enter the Docker Container

First get the container ID:

docker ps -a

Then attach to it:

sudo docker exec -it docker_ID /bin/bash

---